tomorrowland.com » FAIL http://www.tomorrowland.com technology making our lives more futuristic and fun Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:44:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 Comcast Digital Cable Ad Missed The Mark http://www.tomorrowland.com/2009/05/20/12-months/ http://www.tomorrowland.com/2009/05/20/12-months/#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 06:33:30 +0000 Michael http://www.tomorrowland.com/?p=1219 ben_and_shaq_comcast“12 Months!?!”

A new ad starring Ben Stein and Shaq promoting a special price for Comcast Digital Cable totally misses the mark by showing the two handcuffed together and then making a point to emphasize that they’re going to be shaq-led for 12 months.  The idea is supposed to be that Shaq represents “Being the best” and Ben represents being frugal.  But instead all I get is that I’d be locked into the deal for a year.  It doesn’t help that after the two are handcuffed they are shocked to discover the duration of their deal…

Ben – “I know about being smart with my money…”

Shaq – “…and I know about being the best”

Ben – “and we’re being handcuffed together to show the two sides of Comcast’s Offer on digital cable with HBO.”

Shaq – “The best entertainment on demand, whenever you want it.”

Ben – “For just 29.99 a month, a price that you can lock in for…” (shocked) “12 Months!?!”

ben_and_shaq_comcast

12_moths

While it might actually be a decent offer, the ad comes off as sounding like I’m going to be handcuffed to a contract for a year.  Of course the fine print verifies this by saying “Minimun 1-year agreement required. Early termination fee applies.”  Fail!

]]> http://www.tomorrowland.com/2009/05/20/12-months/feed/ 2 FAIL – Windows: Life without wall http://www.tomorrowland.com/2008/11/18/fail-windows-life-without-wall/ http://www.tomorrowland.com/2008/11/18/fail-windows-life-without-wall/#comments Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:30:19 +0000 Michael http://www.michaelsmith.tv/?p=336 Has anyone else noticed lately that the industry hasn’t quite figured out the whole 4:3 vs 16:9 thing? This is one of many ads I saw last night during Chuck that completely ignored the fact that the majority of american televisions are still 4:3.  I have an original HD DirecTV Tivo and an HD projector. I don’t get local channels in HD yet and was watching the 4:3 NTSC feed of Chuck.  I don’t know if DirecTV is just taking the HD feed and cropping the sides off or what.  But either way, it is the responsibility of the people making the ads to protect any important information inside of 4:3 title safe.  (By that I mean the Editor or the Producer or the Ad Agency or the dude at Microsoft who said “sure that looks awesome”)  In this case (see photo) the Windows ad “Life Without Walls” the “S” is completely cut off and on most TV’s the word “WALL” would also be cut off due to the 10% action safe. In another major ad last night the on the screen talent was half outside of 4:3 safe – literally one eye on screen and one off.  Again on an older TV that probably means you can only see his arm flapping around.

Here’s a message to the dude (or chick) at Microsoft who paid millions of dollars for that mess… if the majority of people watching the ad can’t see the last half of your tag line, how is your message getting across?  Surely the tag line “Windows – LIFE WITHOUT” is not what you were hoping to communicate.  But that is the message that 80% of viewers saw Monday night.  Maybe you need a new editor/producer/ad agency to give millions of dollars to. Call my people and we’ll talk.

]]> http://www.tomorrowland.com/2008/11/18/fail-windows-life-without-wall/feed/ 3